


Burnt at Both Ends

by easternCriminal



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Bad end, Character Death, Gen, but also good end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/easternCriminal
Summary: A catastrophe. Pieces scattered. And trying to put it all back together.Alternatively: The results of being the inheritor of two opposite groups.





	Burnt at Both Ends

Julie’s life ends in an explosion. Or at least it feels like it. Maybe it should have ended, there with the others. It would feel better if it had. But no, instead when Kane came marching down into Motorcity to challenge Mike she ran to Deluxe. That had been the plan - lure Kane away from his base of operations and take over from there. Subdue him on their home turf and free the citizens of Deluxe above. 

So when the fight got more and more intense, and Kane and Mike fight for all that they stand for - stability and safety combatting freedom and expression - she isn’t there. She only hears second hand the account of the fight, and for the most part all people know is the explosion. It’s not clear who set it off, whether it was on purpose or a mistake. If it was her father trying to take down Mike even with the death of himself or a malfunction of machinery. 

It leaves a crater though. Large enough that it’s still smoldering by the time she rushes down to Motorcity, desperate and tears streaming down her face.

They locate the bodies, eventually. What’s left of them at least. They’re charred and bloody and the first one she finds - Chuck - makes her throw up. Nearly everyone she cares about died that day. Chuck had of course been close enough to Mike to get the same hit from the explosion. Texas had been farther off, rushing to Mike’s side when it had happened and she finds his body still clinging onto life. It doesn’t last long, just enough for him to see her and manage a pained smile. His body is too broken to do more. 

The only survivor in the wreckage is Dutch, whose sonic blasters managed to mitigate the explosion rushing at him. That doesn’t mean he’s in good shape though. His entire side is torn up and he’s unconscious but breathing and Roth is frantically wirring on the ground next to him - too damaged to move. 

oOo

 

“Jules,” Mike tells her a year before the explosion. They’re twenty two and tired of fighting. But the war is ongoing, and the Burners would never give up on Motorcity. “...if I’m gone-”

“Don’t.” She replies quickly. Mike shakes his head, looks at his hands and fiddles with a piece they had been out grabbing for one of the cars. It’s rusted and worn but it’ll work fine once Dutch and Chuck get their hands on it.

“No, I need to say this.” He puts down the piece in his lap and faces her. “If I’m ever gone, I need to know that the Burners are in good hands.”

“And Dutch’s hands are fantastic.” She insists, but he just shakes his head. 

“You have this… this spark in you. This fire. I know that if I’m gone it would hard on the others but you…” He turns his head forward for a moment, looking out on Motorcity, at the lights that twinkle up at them from their perch on a trash heap. “...I know that you pick things back up.” 

Her throat closes up and she can’t argue anymore. In that moment she wants to tell him who she is, but the words won’t come. They remain barred by her firmly closed lips and the night ends without them being said. 

Mike’s life ends without them being said.

 

oOo

 

Kane files the paperwork when she turns 20, making it official. That night he throws a party - or as close as they get to celebrations anymore. In a plain cube flying somewhere over Deluxe. They eat a dinner with no flavor, but he’s in one of the best moods she’s ever seen and brings out a bottle of champagne. Contraband, her own father has contraband from the old days, and he pops the cork off with a bright smile. 

It’s a soft smile, one she hasn’t seen since she was five and she smiles back despite how her stomach has twisted itself into knots. 

“There’s nothing more satisfying than knowing that this company is in good hands.” She attempts a smile back, and when she can feel it faltering takes a sip of the champagne instead. The taste is nothing like she’s familiar with and her face contorts into a disgusted look. Initially she’s afraid that her father will be mad at her, disappointed that she doesn’t like the drink, but instead she hears a laugh that’s so familiar, like a ghost of the past. 

“Your mother never liked champagne either.” Her eyes widen. Kane hasn’t willing talked about her mother in… in as long as she can remember.

“It’s just so…” She twirls her hand around while she searched for the right word. Kane takes another sip of his own drink and sighs a little in contentment. “...unique.”

“...I know I haven’t been easy on you, Julie.” He even looks at her guiltily. “But it was all for this moment. For when I could know that you’re ready to take after me. The most trusted and worthy person to be the heir. My daughter” She hides behind her champagne again, even as she can feel her Burner clothes, hidden beneath deluxian blues, seeming to sear into her skin.

 

oOo

 

The first thing she does is take Dutch into Nine Lives and race back to Deluxe, tear streaks on her face. They have better medical equipment up there, and if there’s any chance that will help him make it, she’ll take it. At the sight of a car the Deluxe alarms go off and troops storm them on all sides. Instead of fighting them this time she steps out, and lets her fiery red hair speak for itself. She dons her Deluxian blues in order to prevent a shoot out.

“Stand down.” She calls, and she can feel what her father did three years ago go into effect. Codes are being rewritten with her voice command, her retina, her face being the key. Her father must have had some kind of a failsafe that would change things over if he died. “We-” She takes a steadying breath. “We need a hospital.” 

“But maam, he’s a Bur-”

“You will call me Miss Kane.” She says with cool seriousness, drawing on her fathers lessons. The guard immediately cows under her gaze. “I said we need a hospital.” Immediately they spring into action, taking the two of them into a cube and flying them towards Kane’s personal hospital.

It’s a long two days after that. Mostly she waits outside of Dutch’s room. She alerted his family with the vague details of the situation. After the first twenty four hours it was clear that his right leg and arm were done for, nerves fried and bone exposed. Julie, in a selfish way, wished that they had just been blown off initially. It was harder to be the one that gave the word that they chop off your friends favorite arm. 

At least he’s alive. 

 

oOo

 

Deluxe and Motorcity both seem to hold their breath, waiting to see what the new ruler of Deluxe will do. When she makes her first public appearance, it’s at Kane’s funeral. No one knows how his body got back to Deluxe (no one knows that Julie snuck back down and took it back up herself. One of the hardest drives she’s ever had to make) but the Kane’s co workers help to dress the body in traditional blue and put holograms over him to make him look like he did in life, disguising the blood and burns and chunks missing.

All of Deluxe is required to attend the funeral, and it’s broadcasted down to Motorcity. Not her choice, it’s in her dad’s will. When she steps out of the cube, bearing flowers, she can only imagine the gasps from down below. Her father had wanted everyone to come in their Deluxian blues, but she’s in charge now and she can do as she pleases. Instead Julie wears a pure black dress, a traditional funeral color. 

It’s the color she wore to her mother's funeral. It’s the color she wears to her father's. 

She approaches and lays the flowers on her father’s chest and leans down, kissing his forehead. It’s cold and clammy, and holograms can do a lot, but she can still feel the tattered skin and taste the blood. 

Several people give speeches on Kane and all he did for them. It’s mostly just nonsense, ways of thinking that she knows she’ll have to drill out of them as she attempts to clean up her fathers mess. Julie stands to the side, leaning slightly on Claire, her pillar in this time of turmoil. When it’s her turn to speak she talks about who he was as a father, how he had tried his best, even if misguided. It’s with the eyes of Motorcity and Deluxe on her that she declares officially her new role as president over Deluxe. 

After the funeral she cries in her father’s room, curled up on the floor.

 

She finds Jacob the next day in the workshop, drunk and trying to fix up Mutt, or what was left of her. Instantly guilt floods Julie. 

How had she not even considered how this would affect him.

  
  


oOo

 

A few days later is the Motorcity funeral. Dutch hasn’t woken up yet, and Julie knows that he’ll be mad at himself if he ever does for missing it. 

It’s not mandatory for everyone to come, but it feels as though they do anyway. Streets are flooded with people as they gather around the three caskets.

This funeral is not as orderly or clean. The caskets are made out of metal scraps found around, with holes poked into the top of them. All three of them are closed - they didn’t use holotech to try and make the funeral pretty, like with Kane. They’re covered in items. Mostly flowers but also things like stuffed animals, welded creations, shiny rocks… anything that they could find that seemed right for a funeral. 

People are surprised when Nine Lives pulls up, parking with all the other gang cars. Rayon hadn’t been sure that they were coming, and had already been prepared to conduct the funeral on his own. It’s a relief to him to see the sleek yellow car. 

Julie wears all black to this funeral too - it’s what everyone wears to funerals in Motorcity. This time she left her dress at her pod at home - she doesn’t think she could stomach wearing that black dress again, the memories of her father clinging to it like dust. Instead she wears a simply black suit with a black button up - the only color coming from her tie which is emblazoned the colors of the Burners, and a simple Burner lapel pin.

Jacob comes out of her passenger side, hair in a ponytail and clothes the same dreary black as everyone else's’. The pair of them take their position in the middle of the three coffins, letting Rayon return to the side. Julie can feel Motorcity’s eyes on her, knowing who she is. 

She places an item for each coffin. Texas’ half-upgraded gunchucks. Chucks own burner jacket she had been working to make for him. New soles for Mike’s beloved cowbow boots for his birthday. Items that she was going to give them in the future, another day, the concept of which she had taken for granted. 

Jacob gave them each an item as well, personal and seemingly pointless things that undoubtedly meant the world to him. 

It was a longer funeral service, a line of people who wanted to say something about the Burners. Their thanks. Their feeling of loss. 

All of Raymanthia came and bowed to the memory of the Vanquisher, and Ruby flung herself on to the casket, crying uncontrollably until her friends managed to tear her away. The Weekend Warriors saluted to Private Rat Trap (Texas had helped them out over the years, and had earned his way to become part of their gang officially). Rayon comes up and talks about Mike, laying down his sunglasses on the casket, revealing puffy red eyes. The Duke comes and doesn’t say a work. He kisses the foot of each coffin, and then leaves.

When it’s Julie’s turn she speaks about each of them, voice wavering with each word. It’s the best she can do. It’s not enough. 

After all the speeches are finished and gifts are given, Julie does her job and hooks up her car to the platform the coffins rest on. It’s a funeral march through Motorcity to the Final Chasm, the same one that spans the Detroit Doom Jump. Most of the crowd follows as they proceed at a snails pace, as if to give the three boys one last look at the town. They are given one last moment with the bodies and Jacob finally breaks down, crying for his dead children. 

Finally, Julie lights matches one by one and drops them through one of the holes in the top of the coffin, lighting them on fire. Someone must have added chemicals and elements to the liquid inside because the fires light up green, red, and blue. They send the three pillars of light down the chasm, watching the fires until they’re so far they blink out, like dead stars. 

 

oOo

 

Dutch wakes up a week later, in Deluxe, with Tennie and his family at his bedside. He tries to move his right hand and reach out towards her, but there’s nothing there to move. 

 

oOo

 

The weeks after the funeral Julie meets with the gang leaders of Motorcity. She’s the leader of the Burners now, so it’s only right. Jacob is declared her second in command for Deluxe, because a selfish part of her wants to spend as much time as possible down in Motorcity. It’s with great excitement that she declares after four months of negotiations, that Motorcity and Deluxe have agreed to open up to one another. Any would-be attacks on Deluxe and its citizens are quelled with the threat of Motorcity’s largest gangs who have sided with Miss Kane. 

The entire child recruitment idea is disbanded, and Julie works to try and instill freedom and creativity into the citizens of Deluxe - not an easy task. Blue and white are no longer the regulated colors, and wearing clothing besides the previously required jumpsuits is encouraged. Jacob helps her to design new tunnels to Motocity that are safer and more easily accessible. 

Throughout all of this Claire becomes her other partner, her diplomat and friend. With her suave way with words she helps Julie to reach the ears of their citizens and becomes Julie’s right hand girl, the one to who people are deferred to when Julie and Jacob are not around. 

Gingerly, a bright new future begins to take shape.

 

oOo

 

Her father wanted his body preserved and kept in public, a reminder. Maybe she never quite outgrew her teenage rebellion. Instead she takes his body and finds where her mom is buried, out past the dome. It is not, in fact, a waste land, and the headstone rests in a field amongst hundreds of flowers. She spends the entire day digging a place for him, working in the hot sun - a new experience for her. Already a part of her is formulating how to safely tear down the dome, how to try and find out if there is more civilization out here. Whether to contact them, how to keep both cities safe from possible larger dictators waiting to pounce on them. 

She lies her father to rest under the harshly beating sun.

 

oOo

 

She finds Dutch at the Final Chasm, legs dangling over the side. Tennie and Roth helped him to make himself new mechanical limbs, but they’re still not quite right, still going through prototypes. 

“They’re really down there somewhere, huh?” Dutch breaks the silence as Julie sits down next to him. Breaking the news to him was… it was hard. Harder than even telling Jacob. 

“Yeah.” It words is flat sounds, and Julie tries to wrack her brain for something else to say, words of comfort or assurity. 

“Have you guys cleaned up their rooms yet?” 

“No, I- we haven’t gone in them yet.” Dutch nods thoughtfully, still staring down the abyss. After a pause he stands up. 

“Then I guess we better get to it.” 

 

The Dutch kneels down and helps her pick up the pieces. 


End file.
